They gave her forty-eight hours to move out.
On paper, it was "expedited relocation to secure housing," written in tidy legal language that made it sound like a scholarship, not an eviction.
In reality, it was Adrien sending a bullet-point email that boiled down to: pack, sign keys over to your landlord, a car will come.
Her landlord took the news better than she'd expected. When she knocked on his door, letter in hand, her stomach in knots, Mr. Dias just sighed in the long-suffering way of a man who'd seen too many tenants come and go.
"So you're leaving," he said, scratching at his stubble. "Finally famous enough to afford somewhere with working radiators, eh?"
"Something like that," she said.
He skimmed the "corporate housing" letter, eyes widening slightly at the letterhead. "Valtor Group," he read aloud. "Big man's company. You dating him or suing him?"
"Neither," she said quickly. "It's complicated."
"Everything is," he grunted. "You're paid up through the month. I'll return your deposit if you don't leave the place looking like a crime scene."
"Deal," she said, and meant it more literally than he knew.
Back upstairs, her apartment looked even smaller now that she was packing it into boxes. The narrow hallway where she'd tripped over cables a hundred times. The corner of the living room that had been her "studio"—a secondhand desk, duct-taped chair, and the old drafting lamp her aunt had rescued from a school sale. Her bed, tucked under a window that whistled in winter.
The whole place could fit inside one of the penthouse's side rooms, she guessed.
She packed her life into cardboard: sketchbooks, hard drives, a tangle of cords, the chipped mug Leah had given her that said "I Draw, Therefore I'm Tired." Each object went into a box with quiet little thumps, like hearts being put into storage.
Leah showed up halfway through, carrying coffee, eyes already glossy.
"Corporate relocation, huh?" she said, looking at the letter again. "It literally sounds like the setup for one of your AUs. 'Artist gets kidnapped by billionaire wolf for her own good.'"
"It's not kidnapped," Amara said, shoving a stack of T-shirts into a suitcase. "I signed something."
"Kidnapping with extra paperwork is still kidnapping," Leah muttered.
They packed in silence for a while. Tape tore. Cardboard sighed. Somewhere down the hall, someone's TV played a game show too loudly, oblivious.
"You can say no," Leah said at one point, out of nowhere.
"I already signed," Amara said.
"You can still… I don't know. Run away. Join a commune. Start a new life as a watercolorist in Iceland."
"Pretty sure my binding bracelet thing has some fine print about that," Amara said.
Leah froze, halfway through wrapping a mug in newspaper. "Your what?"
"Nothing," Amara said quickly. "Bad metaphor."
Leah narrowed her eyes. "You're lying," she said. "You suck at lying."
Amara forced a smile. "So I've been told," she said, and bent over another box to hide her face.
She didn't tell Leah about the warmth that had crawled up her wrist when she signed, or the way it still tingled sometimes, faint as the memory of a burn.
That first night after signing, she'd held her arm up under every light in her apartment, searching for marks. Nothing. Just the usual faint line where she wore hair ties, a tiny freckle in the shape of a comma, the shadow of her veins.
But every time she thought about the contract, the skin there buzzed. Not pain. Not exactly comfort, either. Like a distant, invisible thread tugging just enough to remind her it existed.
By the time everything was boxed, the sun had dipped low, painting the street in tired gold.
The sleek, black car arrived right on schedule the next morning.
It looked spectacularly wrong on her block—too clean, too polished, the kind of car that existed in movies and financial district brochures, not opposite a laundromat with a perpetually flickering "OPEN" sign.
The driver stepped out, looking like he'd been printed from a "professional chauffeur" template. Dark suit, neutral expression, earpiece discreetly tucked in. He glanced at the building number, then at her.
"Ms. Reyes?" he asked.
"That's me," she said, tightening her grip on her suitcase handle.
He took it from her with practiced ease. "We'll send a team for the remaining boxes," he said. "You just need your essentials today."
"Right," she said. "Essentials."
If someone had told her a month ago that her "essentials" would be: tablet, drawing glove, toothbrush, three pairs of jeans, one dress suitable for being yelled at by judges, and the hoodie Leah had insisted she take "for emotional support," she would have laughed.
Now it just felt accurate.
Leah hugged her on the sidewalk, hard enough to squeeze the air out of her lungs. "Text me the second you get there," she said. "If they take your phone, send me psychic messages. I'll light candles and perform interpretive dances until you're free."
"Please don't interpretive dance on my behalf," Amara said. "I don't want that on my conscience."
Leah laughed, but it broke at the edges. "If he does anything creepy," she added, voice dropping, "I will personally break into his tower and bite him."
"He'll probably bite back," Amara said.
"Then we'll see who's more rabid," Leah shot back.
The driver opened the car door.
The interior smelled like leather and something expensive she couldn't name. Soft, orchestrated music played under the hum of the engine. The seats hugged her when she sank into them, the kind of comfort designed for people whose backs never touched public bus upholstery.
The city slid by outside, buildings reflecting in the tinted glass, familiar streets warped by the angle. They passed her local coffee shop—the barista with the piercings was outside taking a smoke break, oblivious. They passed the bookstore where Leah worked, its display window full of cheerful romance novels that suddenly felt like artifacts from a simpler universe.
As they neared the financial district, the architecture shifted. Glass and steel replaced brick and chipped paint. The sidewalks filled with suits and heels, the air smelling less like fried food and more like cologne and stress.
Valtor Tower rose ahead like a blade.
She'd already seen it once, going to the meeting with Lucian. It looked different now, knowing she'd be living at the top of it. Not a destination. A set of teeth.
They didn't pull up at the main entrance this time. The car slipped into a private side drive, down a ramp into an underground garage that felt like the inside of a spaceship—low light, clean lines, security cameras winking red.
Two guards waited there.
They weren't mall-cop security. They had the coiled stillness of people who spent their days calculating threat vectors. Earpieces, dark suits, eyes scanning everything in a slow, practiced sweep.
The driver stepped out and came around to her side. "Ms. Reyes is here," he said to the nearest guard.
The guard looked her over, not leering, just assessing. "Welcome," he said. "We'll need your phone for a moment to register it."
"My phone?" she echoed, clutching it reflexively.
"For security," he said. "We'll add it to the permitted devices list and install our access app. You'll need it for doors, elevators, panic alerts."
Panic alerts.
She forced her fingers to unclench and handed it over.
The other guard approached with a small scanner. "Left wrist, please," he said.
The words made her flinch.
"What for?" she asked.
"Access band check," he said. "Your contract registered a biometric binding when you signed."
Her skin crawled. "You can… scan that?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. "It's linked to your ID in our system. Just confirming it registered properly."
He held the scanner out.
It looked like a regular corporate gadget—small, rectangular, a screen glowing faint blue. Nothing magical. Nothing with teeth.
She hesitated, then held out her left hand.
The scanner beeped as he passed it slowly over her wrist. The tiny screen flashed green.
"Binding confirmed," he said.
"Of course it is," she muttered, pulling her hand back.
Her skin tingled where the scanner had passed, the same hot-cold rush she'd felt when the invisible ink had sunk into her the day before.
They gave her phone back with a new app installed—a minimalist icon of a wolf's head stylized into something that could pass as a corporate logo if you squinted.
"Valtor Access," the guard explained. "That's your keycard. Don't delete it."
"I wasn't planning to," she said.
They led her to a private elevator.
No button panel, just a sleek black circle that glowed when the guard tapped his own wristband and then her phone. The doors slid open with a smooth whisper.
"Penthouse level," he said. The doors closed.
The ride up was silent except for the faint hum of machinery. Her ears popped slightly as they rose.
When the doors opened, it felt less like stepping out of an elevator and more like emerging into another planet.
The penthouse was… beautiful.
Even through the lens of resentment, she couldn't deny it.
A long, open space stretched ahead, bathed in natural light from floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around three sides. The city sprawled below in a glittering mosaic: rooftops, streets, a river catching the light like a strip of moving glass.
The interior was all muted luxury—soft grays, warm wood, understated art. Marble floors in the entry gave way to rich, pale oak planks. A sunken living area held a low couch big enough to sleep a basketball team, anchored by a coffee table that may or may not have been real stone. Shelves lined one wall, filled with a mix of books and objects that looked curated rather than sentimental.
A kitchen sat at one end, all sleek lines and chrome, the kind of space that appeared in cooking shows where no one ever actually cooked. An island of dark stone, barstools that looked like they'd never known crumbs.
Somewhere deeper in, hallways branched off. Closed doors, subtle.
It was the nicest place she'd ever set foot in.
It felt like a museum.
If museums came with surveillance.
Because once she looked past the window view and the art, she saw the other details.
A small camera tucked discreetly into the corner of the ceiling, its black lens embedded in a fixture designed to look like a smoke detector. Another one above the kitchen doorway. Another near the hallway junction.
They weren't obvious. You could miss them if you weren't looking.
She was looking.
"Your primary areas are this floor's guest wing and shared spaces," one of the guards said, like he was giving a tour of a very polite cage. "Upper mezzanine is restricted. Mr. Valtor's private study and bedroom are off-limits unless summoned."
Summoned.
Her skin prickled.
"You'll also find cameras in the shared hallways and common rooms," he continued. "Not in your bedroom or ensuite. We observe privacy where contractually required."
"Where contractually required," she repeated numbly.
He nodded. "Security protocols will be reviewed with you thoroughly this afternoon," he said. "For now, Ms. Kwan will show you to your quarters."
A woman in her fifties emerged from a side corridor, her presence so smooth she might have been part of the architecture until she moved. Sharp bob haircut, immaculate blouse, expression somewhere between neutral and mildly disapproving.
"Ms. Reyes," she said. "I'm Mei Kwan. House operations manager."
House operations manager.
"Hi," Amara said. "Nice… prison."
One of Ms. Kwan's eyebrows lifted a millimeter. "We prefer 'secure residence,'" she said. "This way, please."
She led Amara down a hallway that branched off from the main living area.
The walls here were softer—painted in warm neutrals, lit by recessed lights that cast a gentle glow. More cameras tucked into corners. Subtle, but she could feel their gaze like a weight between her shoulder blades.
They passed a door that was obviously a gym—she glimpsed equipment, mirrors, a punching bag. Another door that looked like a small home theater.
Finally, Ms. Kwan stopped at a door near the end of the hall.
"This will be your room," she said. She tapped her wristband and then gestured for Amara to hold her phone up to a small black panel. The wolf-head icon on the screen glowed; the panel blinked green. The door clicked.
"Access granted," Ms. Kwan said. "Only you and authorized staff can enter."
"How comforting," Amara muttered.
The room was… absurd.
It was bigger than her entire apartment.
A king-size bed sat against one wall, its headboard upholstered in soft gray fabric, pillows stacked in fluffy layers. A seating area by the window held a small sofa and a low table. There was a desk near the far wall, not as utilitarian as her old one but wide, with a high-quality monitor already set up, a drawing tablet nestled beside it—newer than her model, high-end.
A floor-to-ceiling window took up nearly the entire outer wall, offering a view not quite as sweeping as the main living room's but still vast. The city sprawled below, tiny cars inching along veins of concrete.
To one side, an open doorway led to an ensuite bathroom: marble counters, a rainfall showerhead, towels folded into perfect rectangles.
It looked like a five-star hotel room designed after consulting several lifestyle magazines.
Amara stood in the doorway, clutching the handle of her suitcase, feeling like she'd wandered into the wrong movie.
If she'd seen this room on a screen, she would have been the one making edits: add a stack of photos on the nightstand, clothes spilling over a chair, a plant half-dead in the corner. Add chaos. Add a life.
This place didn't look lived in.
It looked prepared.
"As per your contract, all basic amenities are provided," Ms. Kwan said. "Wardrobe can be arranged this week. If you have specific dietary requirements, inform the kitchen. Room service is available during designated hours. You are not allowed to order outside food or receive unauthorized deliveries."
"Because of security," Amara said.
"Because of security," Ms. Kwan agreed.
"What about… leaving?" Amara asked. "Can I go out? Touch grass? Remember what a corner store looks like?"
"You may leave the building with prior approval and escort," Ms. Kwan said. "For now, we recommend minimizing external exposure."
"For my protection," Amara said dully.
"And Mr. Valtor's," Ms. Kwan said. "Your presence here is not public knowledge. We prefer to keep it that way."
She handed Amara a slim tablet. It was branded with the same wolf-head logo, matte black, almost ominous.
"This contains your schedule," Ms. Kwan said. "Orientation, security briefing, meal times, work sessions. You'll also find house rules and emergency protocols. Read them."
"House rules," Amara echoed. "Like no parties, no pets, no summoning eldritch beings after midnight?"
Ms. Kwan blinked once. "No photography in restricted areas," she said. "No bringing external devices onto secure floors without clearance. No discussing Mr. Valtor's private affairs with anyone outside this residence. Standard provisions."
"Standard for who?" Amara whispered.
"If you require anything, use the 'Request' function on the tablet," Ms. Kwan continued. "Someone will assist you. There is always at least one guard on this floor. You are safe here, Ms. Reyes." Her eyes flicked briefly to Amara's wrist. "Safer than anywhere else."
It didn't feel like safety.
It felt like being placed under glass.
"Does he live here?" Amara asked abruptly.
Ms. Kwan's expression flattened into something unreadable. "This is one of Mr. Valtor's primary residences," she said. "Yes. He occupies the upper mezzanine and a section of this floor. You will see him during scheduled sessions. You are not to approach his private quarters without explicit summons."
Summons. Again.
Amara's mouth went dry.
Ms. Kwan glanced at her watch. "Your orientation begins in one hour," she said. "You may use this time to unpack and… acclimate."
Right.
Acclimate.
To being caged.
"Welcome to Valtor Penthouse," Ms. Kwan added, with the kind of professionalism that suggested she'd said it many times to people far more excited than this.
Then she left, the door clicking softly shut behind her.
Silence rushed in.
Big, echoing silence, the kind that came with expensive insulation and multiple floors between you and street noise.
In her old apartment, silence never lasted long. There was always someone yelling at a game, kids thumping down the stairs, a neighbor's music pulsing through too-thin walls, pipes clanking in the night. Even at three a.m., the city would murmur under her window: cars, sirens, the distant hiss of tires on wet streets.
Here, the city was a painting behind glass.
She took a few steps inside and set her suitcase down near the bed. The wheels made a small, apologetic noise against the hardwood.
The bed looked like a cloud someone had squashed into mattress form. She sat on the edge of it gingerly, the mattress yielding just enough. Her feet dangled a centimeter above the floor.
Her fingers dug into the coverlet. It was soft. Everything here was soft. Smooth. Rounded. As if the space had been designed to erase sharp edges.
Her chest felt full of them.
She stood again and walked to the window.
The view stole her breath, despite everything.
From up here, the city was abstract. No trash. No cracked sidewalks. Just lines and light. Tiny yellow rectangles crawled along black ribbons of road. The river cut a dark, thrumming line through the middle, flashing silver where the sun caught it. The sky was pale blue, streaked with thin clouds already fading in the morning glare.
She pressed her fingertips to the glass.
It was cool.
Her reflection stared back at her faintly: a small woman in an oversized hoodie and leggings, hair tied up in a messy knot, eyes too big, too tired. She looked like she'd accidentally wandered into the wrong painting.
Behind her reflected image, deeper in the room, she could see the bed, the desk, the door.
And, if she looked closely at the corner of the ceiling, a tiny black lens.
Watching.
Her wrist buzzed faintly.
She looked down.
Nothing there. No visible mark. Just the ghost-sense of something coiled under the skin, humming with quiet satisfaction now that she'd crossed whatever threshold the binding had been tied to.
"From cramped to caged," she murmured. "Congrats, Reyes. You levelled up."
Her voice sounded small in the big room.
She wandered over to the desk.
The tablet waiting there was sleek, newer than hers. When she tapped the screen, it woke instantly, showing a login interface already filled with her name. She touched the "Enter" icon; the background shifted to a minimalist dashboard.
At the top: VALTOR CREATIVE PROGRAM – AMARA REYES – WEEK 1
Below that: a schedule.
9:00 – Orientation / Security Briefing – Ms. Kwan
11:00 – Creative Session: Initial Assessment – Valtor
13:00 – Lunch Break – Dining Area (Escort Optional)
14:30 – Legal & PR Overview – Adrien Hale
16:00 – Personal Time (On Premises)
19:00 – Dinner (Optional Shared / Room Service)
She stared at the 11:00 line until the words "Creative Session" blurred.
With him.
In what? A conference room? His study? Some neutral room where they'd pretend this was a normal mentorship and not a werewolf CEO trying to manage his pet artist.
Her chest tightened.
She backed away from the desk like the schedule might reach out and grab her.
For a second, panic clawed up her throat.
She was alone. In a beautiful, carefully controlled bubble. High above a city she knew but couldn't touch without permission. Bound by something she couldn't see. Surrounded by cameras and people whose job descriptions included phrases like "access control" and "threat mitigation."
She sat on the floor, because the expensive furniture felt like it would reject her if she sank too deeply into it.
The wood was smooth under her palms.
Her breathing hitched.
She pressed her back against the side of the bed and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. Classic comfort pose. Grounding. Her therapist had taught her that years ago—before the therapist moved away and she stopped going because it was too expensive.
"Name five things you can see," she whispered.
The bed. The desk. The window. The tablet. The stupid half-million thread-count sheets.
"Four things you can touch."
The floor. The fabric of her hoodie. Her own wrist, pulse fluttering under skin. The binding hum.
"Three things you can hear."
The distant, muffled whoosh of HVAC. The faint buzz of the fridge in the small minibar tucked into the corner. The almost inaudible, steady hum of the city far below.
"Two things you can smell."
Clean linen. The lingering trace of someone else's cologne, faint in the room like a ghost. His? Or some anonymous cleaner's? She didn't know.
"One thing you can taste."
Acidic coffee still on her tongue. Fear.
Her heartbeat steadied, barely.
She sat like that for a long minute, forehead resting on her knees, trying not to picture claws scraping plaster.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, startling her.
Leah.
Leah:Alive?
Leah:Do I need to organize a rescue mission featuring three baristas and a very angry romance section?
Amara laughed, a choked little sound.
Amara:Arrived. Not dead.
Amara:Place is insane. Bigger than the internet.
Amara:Also I am 90% sure there are more cameras than light bulbs.
Three dots.
Leah:Send pics
Then:
Leah:Wait can you? Or will they sue you for photographing their marble?
Amara:Probably illegal to take selfies with the billionaire's fridge.
Amara:Will report back tonight. If no reply, assume I've been turned into branded merch.
Leah:If he turns you into Funko Pop I WILL RIOT.
Leah:Love you. You got this. Remember, wolves or not, he still has to put his pants on one leg at a time.
Leah:Probably. Unless they get tailored to just appear on him by magic. Rich people are weird.
Amara smiled, small but real.
Amara:Love you too. Tell the romance section I miss them.
She slid the phone back into her pocket, the weight of it a small comfort.
Outside the door, the world of Valtor Tower hummed along—guards pacing, staff moving, Lucian somewhere above or down the hall, preparing for the 11 a.m. "creative session" that would set the tone for the next twelve weeks of her life.
Inside the room, everything was quiet.
She stood, finally, and opened her suitcase.
As she hung clothes in a wardrobe the size of her old bathroom, placed her chipped mug on the glossy bedside table, and plugged her old, battle-scarred tablet in beside the new one, the room shifted by degrees.
Not home.
Not yet.
But less pristine.
Tiny evidence that she existed.
A hoodie draped over the chair. A sketchbook left open on the desk. A pair of sneakers kicked off by the door.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror.
Same tired eyes. Same stubborn chin. Same ink stain on her thumb from a pen that had signed too much.
"Okay," she told her reflection. "You're in the wolf's den. You're caged. You're watched. But you're here."
Her wrist buzzed again, faintly, like agreement—or warning.
"You still draw," she added. "They can't stop that. They can steer it, maybe. Muzzle it. But they can't take the part of your brain that turns fear into panels."
Her reflection didn't argue.
Somehow, that helped.
A soft chime sounded from the tablet on the desk.
Orientation begins in 15 minutes. Please proceed to the main living area.
She took a deep breath.
From cramped to caged.
From an apartment with peeling paint and leaky pipes to a penthouse of glass and marble with invisible bars.
Same girl.
New story.
And somewhere in this expensive, over-secured box in the sky, the wolf who'd dragged her here was waiting to see what she would do next.